1. Technical Field
The present invention relates, in general, to an improved touch screen user interface method and system. In particular, the present invention relates to an improved touch screen user interface method and system which makes it easier for a user to enter and display point of sale transaction data, view, and act upon previously entered point of sale transaction data. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to an improved touch screen user interface method and system which makes it easier for a user to enter and display point of sale transaction data, view, and act upon previously entered point of sale transaction data by creating a visual mechanism that resembles a window shade which allows the user to expand or contract a list of items.
2. Description of the Related Art
A touch screen user interface is a type of interface that utilizes a touch screen. A touch screen is a computer screen designed or modified to recognize the location of a touch on its surface. By touching the screen, the user can make a selection or move a cursor. The simplest type of touch screen is made up of a grid of sensing lines, which determine the location of a touch by matching vertical and horizontal contacts. Another, more accurate, type uses an electrically charged surface and sensors around the outer edges of the screen to detect the amount of electrical disruption and pin point exactly where contact has been made. A third type embeds infrared light emitting diodes and sensors around the outer edges of the screen. These diodes and sensors create an invisible infrared grid which the user's finger interrupts, in front of the screen. Infrared touch screens, because they are completely sealed, are often used in dirty environments where contaminants could interfere with the operation of other types of touch screens. Microsoft Press Computer Dictionary 295 (2 ed. 1994).
A touch screen is thus a computer screen modified such that the location where a user has touched the screen can be determined with particularity. A touch screen user interface is a type of man-machine interface that enables a user to enter data, and cause the execution of program commands, merely by pointing to or touching a pictorial representation on a computer screen. Thus, a touch screen user interface is a type man-machine interface that allows users to directly interface with the computer merely by touching a computer screen.
Touch screen interfaces have proved to be vastly popular and useful in many areas of commerce. One of the areas of commerce in which such touch screen user interfaces have proved to be both popular and useful is the retailing of fungible items.
Such popularity of touch screen user interfaces in the retailing of fungible items tends to arise because such touch screen user interfaces allow workers with widely varying skills to accomplish the same functions. One industry, in particular, where items sold are fungible and where touch screen user interfaces have proven particularly useful has been the fast food industry.
In the fast food industry each fast food store generally has a certain limited set of food items which its sells. Over the course of time, fast food retailers have found it helpful to be able to maintain data via computer databases regarding the sales of various types of fast food items. For example, such fast food retailers may wish to know the average times at which certain items are purchased, the average time between purchases, and the average number of such items sold per hour or per day. By keeping a running total of such information over the course of time, fast food retailers can derive such desired information.
Computer databases are uniquely suited to tracking this type of information. However, the widely varying skills of workers often makes entry of information into a computer database via standard keyboard input unfeasible. Furthermore, the fast pace at which transactions occur within the fast food industry would tend to indicate that the accuracy of such entries into a computer database, even if such skills did exist within the fast food industry work force, would tend to be inaccurate. Thus, problems have existed within the fast food industry regarding how to track the desired information given the skills of the workforce and the rapid nature of the sales transactions.
In a nutshell, the foregoing problems can be summarized by stating that the workers in the fast food industry sometimes do not have the skills necessary to adequately input sales data into a traditional computer database system in a timely and accurate manner. Touch screen user interfaces have solved the majority of the foregoing cited problems. Touch screen user interfaces have solved the problems by decreasing the amount of information and concepts that each individual worker has to be able to grasp in order to correctly and effectively carry out the recordation of the sale of fungible retail items such as fast food items.
A touch screen user interface may be configured such that a user of the interface need only have a very limited vocabulary in order to effectively carry out the sales of the fungible items retailed by the establishment for which that individual works. The touch screen user interface may be configured such that a user of such an interface need only be able to understand a limited set of words such as entrees, sides, breads, desserts, beverages, and specials. Furthermore, it is common to pair with such words pictographic representations of such words so that a user can utilize the touch screen user interface, and effectively record the sale of items, even if such user has difficulty with reading. Thus, rather than having to struggle with a traditional computer system interface, with a touch screen interface a worker need merely point and touch a picture of an object to be sold. In other words, a touch screen user interface transmutes the rather cognitive task of a retail sale and its entry into a computer system into a purely manual task of pointing at an object.
While touch screen user interfaces thus have proven very useful and effective in making it possible for widely disparate users to be able to effectively record certain point of sale transactions, there are difficulties in using such interfaces. One such difficulty arises from the fact that the foregoing noted pairings of words with pictographic representations consumes a large amount of space on the touch screen itself. As the number of items to be displayed increases, the amount of touch screen space consumed becomes a problem from the standpoint of resolution and accuracy, because the areas of the touch screen which a user is to touch are not large enough such that a user can actuate those areas accurately. This problem is referred to in the art as the "real estate problem," which is a metaphor for the fact that the region of the touch screen available for display (i.e., the "real estate") is smaller than that necessary for effective interaction with the display.
That is, the "real estate problem" refers to the fact that the touch screen area has become so small that manually activating items is difficult. Previous solutions to the foregoing noted "real estate problem" have tried to solve the problem by introducing hierarchically arranged screens such that if a user needed more detail regarding a particular item, than the user could activate a portion of the touch screen user interface which would bring forward and totally replace a current screen with another data screen showing more detail.
While the foregoing noted solution (hierarchically arranged screens, with each level showing more and different detail) to the problem has proven adequate in some applications, it has generally not proven to be adequate for the recordation of point of sale transactions in many retail fields, such as the fast food industry. One reason that it is not proven adequate in such industries is that the point of sale transactions to be recorded are often rapid and the workers often do not have the ability to do the conceptual juggling required to go from one screen to another and back without becoming confused. Thus, a problem exists in the application of touch screen user interfaces: how to maintain the ease of use of such touch screen user interfaces and yet still allow more information to be entered into, and more user interaction with, such touch screen interfaces, without requiring that a user flip back and forth between different hierarchically arranged computer screens. In other words, how to solve the "real estate problem" without using hierarchically arranged screens.
It is apparent from the foregoing that a need exists for a method and system which will allow the capabilities of a touch screen user interface to be expanded such that a user can more easily input, track, and edit point of sale transaction data without requiring that the user switch back and forth between different hierarchically arranged screens. That is, a need exists for a touch screen user interface method and system which will expand the power of a particular touch screen user interface and yet still maintain the conceptual ease of use and intuitive applications for which touch screen user interfaces were originally developed.